Fire and Ice
by Ayra Sei Ethari
Summary: When William Stryker captures a precognitive and demands that she read the future to find a way for him to kill Magneto and/or Charles Xavier, he doesn't expect her to show everything that will happen if they die. Namely, the end of the f-ing world.
1. Prologue

**_Fire and Ice_**

_Summary:_ When William Stryker captures a precognitive and demands that she read the future to find a way for him to kill Magneto and/or Charles Xavier, he doesn't expect her to show everything that will happen if they die. Namely, the end of the f-ing world.

_Rating:_ K

_Genre:_ friendship ; romance ; angst

_Canon Character(s):_ Charles Xavier/Professor X ; Erik Lehnsherr/Magneto ; William Stryker

_OC Character(s):_ kind of . . . She's like Destiny/Irene Adler, but not really

_Set During:_ a few months after "X-Men: First Class"

_Notes:_ I sort of mixed Destiny/Irene Adler with Alice Cullen's power to create a kind of strange OFC. Anyways, I was inspired by a review from one of my earlier X-Men: The Movie fics, Three Chances, where I suggested that Stryker believed that if he had killed Magneto first, Xavier would easily die. Then a reviewer pointed out that most likely if Magneto had died, Xavier would have gone ballistic. That got me thinking: what _would_ Xavier do if Magneto died? (Yes, I am a fan of Erik/Charles stories, where they love each other so much that in every fic where Xavier "dies" Magneto goes wild and burns the entire darn world down.) Also inspired, a little bit, by Robert Frost's poem of the same name, which I'll explain later.

So here's my attempt to answer that, when the girl shows Stryker what the world will come if he uses what she shows him to kill Magneto, Xavier, or the both of them. Stryker's POV, first person, past tense = my second examine-Erik/Charles's relationship-from-an-outside-party.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Prologue<em>**

~ _William Stryker_ ~  
>The girl sat like she was waiting to take a test she had studied very well for. There was no fear, no anxiety, nothing. Her fingers were folded coolly in her lap, and she showed no sign of planning escape routes, and she didn't try to ask for a phone call home. She didn't even ask for the battered backpack we had taken away when the guards had patted her down for weapons.<p>

Then again, the girl _was_ said to be a precognitive.

"So why didn't she run?" I wondered to myself.

If she had known we were coming, if she had known what we wanted of her, if she had known what our scientists were itching to see . . . why stay?

"Sir?"

I shook myself. "Nothing. Open the door, I'm going to ask the questions. Have all the equipment running, I want a full data breakdown when I'm out." I looked back at the girl who might potentially have the ability to end our war with these . . . mutants. "I want to know she's telling us the truth."

"Of course, sir."

* * *

><p>The girl said nothing when I entered. I did note, though, that she was already looking my direction, despite being blind.<p>

"Irene Adler," I said, pulling open her file. It was shockingly small. We didn't even know her age. Or if Irene Adler was even her real name. "That's your name, isn't it?"

The girl smiled, chillingly, like she was the one asking the questions, not me. "To someone like me, it doesn't really matter," she remarked. "I am Irene. I am Adler. I am Destiny. And you are Colonel William Stryker."

I blinked. We had never told her any names. . .

"You would have, in a minute," she informed me. "I am merely expediting the process. As to how old I am, as that's your next question, again, it matters little to me. I live in the future, William Stryker, not the past. But if you are really curious, I would say, perhaps the late thirties or early forties – if I am lucky."

"If you are lucky?" I repeated, unable to help myself.

"Before I die," she said. "If I do as you want me to do, and tell you how to kill Magneto and the Professor."

I straightened unconsciously. Ah, yes, here we were. The information we needed. And then, yes, she might die young – she couldn't be more than twenty right now, at most, I was guessing – because then we would have no further need of her mutation anymore. Not if the two leaders were killed, because then it would be all too easy to finish off the rest of the mutants. The teleporter might be a little difficult, and the shapeshifter, but in the end, there were only so many places one could hide, and we knew where Westchester was.

Adler shook her head. "You really think that this will bring you peace?"

"We'll have peace when the vermin like you are dead."

"Will you really?" Adler laughed, very quietly, leaning back in her chair. "Are you truly naive enough to believe that nature would let you destroy her own creation so easily? That _homo sapiens_ will triumph over _homo sapiens superior_? My goodness, you _do_ believe it. Well, then, I was right, I am needed here."

I blinked, feeling a little lost. What the hell was "homo sapiens superior?"

"Mutants. It's the technical scientific term for us." Adler frowned. "Or it will be, in a few years, once mutants become more wildly known."

"They'll be dead by then."

"Perhaps."

I leaned across the table, forgetting that she was blind and could not see. But in any case, it didn't matter; she was still smiling so strangely at me that I felt off-balance, unable to intimidate her no matter what. It wasn't condescending or fearfully. It wasn't happy or sad. It just was a smile. And it was aimed directly at me from a blind woman who knew who I was and where I was without being able to see.

"What do you mean?" I snapped.

Adler tilted her head. "Evolution, William Stryker, means that in the competition for the survival of the fittest, the _fittest_ survive. Tell me, who would win if it were you against Magneto? Or the Professor? Or even me?"

Ah, and here we were. This was ground I could navigate.

"Plastic or glass, and Magneto's dead," I told her, ticking the counters off one by one. "There are telepathic-proof alloys for Xavier. A gag for Mr. Cassidy. Sedatives for the teleporter. And you – you're blind, Adler, I could just reach and stab you in the throat, and you would never know in time to defend yourself."

Adler laughed. "Ah, spare me your delusions of grandeur," she said dryly. "Plastic and glass – that's your grand plan? Magneto's been killing Nazis and former SS men for many years, and I'm certain that even without metal, you know he's far deadlier than any of the men you have here. And that telepathic-proof alloy – I don't foresee that becoming available for you for a long time yet, and even if it was, you still have many rounds of testing before it'll be ready to hold a telepath half as powerful as the Professor. If you can't even subdue them, how do you plan to subdue me, William Stryker? I can see the future, or have you forgotten?"

I gritted my teeth. She was really starting to get on my nerves. "I haven't. Which is why you're going to show me how to kill them."

"Which one?"

I chose one at random. "Magneto." He was, after all, right now the greater pain in the rear-end than Xavier. "_Now._ Or I'll find a way to _make_ you talk, Adler."

"Oh, there's no need for that. I'll gladly show you."

I blinked, my gesture for the scientist and shock electrodes dying halfway. We had expected resistance of some kind, any kind. True, she was young and probably more easily intimated than Xavier or Magneto, but still . . .

"You will?" I blurted out in surprise.

"I can show you my visions, if you wish. So. Magneto dead?" She paused. "Ooh, that's a heavy blow indeed to _Homo sapiens superior_. I think my lifespan just went down to twenty-eight." She blinked and rubbed at her eyes, as if trying to clear her tears, although there was no sheen and she wasn't affected by the bright lights in her clouded eyes. "Give me your hand, and I'll show you, William Stryker, how to kill Magneto, if you wish."

"Just like that?"

Adler smiled again, this time sadly. "Well, no. I can't control how much you'll see, you see. So . . . you might see a bit too much planning or a bit too much of the effects of Magneto dying right now. But you will see how to kill him."

"Then that's all I want."

Adler gave me a pitying glance. "It shouldn't be," she said ominously.

"No one has the power to avenge Magneto."

"That's a foolish belief," she observed, but she took my extended hand anyways and closed her eyes.

The next thing I knew, we were standing in the most deserted place I had ever seen. It was like the nuclear war _had_ happened – bodies were everywhere, eyes still open, the ghosts of their last emotions (fear, terror, pain) frozen forever on their faces, just collapsed on the ground like puppets whose strings have been suddenly cut. The sun shone, but it was so, so, so _cold_, like the very warmth was drawn away from the whole world, and grief – grief shone instead, grief so strong that tears threatened to spill from my eyes even though I had no idea what or who I was grieving for.

I whirled to Adler. "I thought you said you would show me how to kill Magneto!"

"I will. Just – let me find the right moment. A few days ahead, I think, of this," she murmured, her eyes still closed.

"Well, what the hell is this then?"

"Hmm? Oh, this? This is what will happen if Magneto dies, I think. The Professor was . . . quite put out. Ah, here we go."

The world spun, but not before I caught a glimpse, in the far distance, of a solitary, gleaming silver-colored wheelchair parked in front of a blood-red helmet, and a man, clad in blood-splattered clothes, keening soundlessly and endlessly over a still body clad in magenta and scarlet.

And I knew, without being told, that it was Charles Xavier who had done this.


	2. Chapter 1

_**Chapter One:**_

_It's the quiet ones you have to watch out for_

~ _William Stryker_ ~  
>It begins with a new weapon. One never seen before. One never made before. One that will never be made again.<p>

"But it'll get the job done," Adler says airily, waving a hand around. "Magneto will die. As will half the Brotherhood, but that's not your main target, is it? Oh, and it will cost a _fortune_."

The world's still spinning, because I can't get that image out of my head: the sleek silver wheelchair and the bright red helmet. Charles Xavier, crying endlessly over the body of a dead man wearing Magneto's face and clothes. And a whole world gone silent, destroyed in a fit of rage and grief and _pain_.

Not for the first time, I wonder exactly what the extent of the relationship between Magneto and Xavier.

Ten years pass with a flick of Adler's finger, and she slips me hints, here and there, about where to get funding, materials, weapons, information, tech, everything I could possibly need to make this project happen in the near future rather than the very, very, very distant future.

Then the weapon is born.

It's a monster, a true, god-honest _monster_, rising up from the depths of the Weapon X lab like a demon from the very pits of hell. It has eyes but no eyelids, mouth but no lips, nose but no ears, and it talks like a robot. It _is_ a robot, constructed of some sort of brand-new polymer that is based off of adamantium, but for obvious reasons isn't, that has been infused into the subject's bones to make them almost invincible. It can teleport, it can heal instantaneously, it can shoot plasma beams from its eyes. It is immune to any kind of telepathic intrusion or virus or serum. Its brain is wired to a computer so that it carries out all the orders without question, and doesn't stop until the job is done.

"His name is Deadpool," Adler says cheerfully, leaning against the railing like a proud parent. "He never fails at what he does."

I wet my lips. Clear my throat.

God, this weapon is . . . repulsive. If it didn't guarantee Magneto's death. . .

"Deadpool is a mutant too, right?" I ask.

Adler shrugs. "It takes a mutant to kill one," she points out. "It took Magneto and the Professor to kill Shaw, remember? And besides, any kind of robot or machine – you'd _have_ to use metal, of some kind, and there goes any assassination attempt because Magneto'd be on to you faster than anything."

"He instantly heals?"

"So he's practically immortal," she confirms. "You could have used him to end any mutant problems."

My eyes slip, unwilling, to her blind ones. "Could have?"

Adler sighs sadly. "Well . . . you'll see. Let me show you what happens and how to kill Magneto first. I can answer all of your inevitable questions at another time." She looks up at me, uncannily right where my eyes are, despite being blind, and I retract my earlier statement, because Adler is far more repulsively creepy that Deadpool right now. "That's what you want, yes? Magneto dead?"

"Of course. Show me," I order.

She flicks a finger.

I watch myself give the order: "Kill Magneto. Take no hostages. Destroy everything in your path."

I watch Deadpool give a quick nod and then whirl around in precise military step and march away, head held high, eyes unblinking, to carry out the orders.

I watch myself receive the intel reports placing Magneto in the Brotherhood on some vague, tiny island called Genosha. I watch him free it with the Brotherhood. I watch him tell the whole world of Genosha's horrifying crimes, and his determination to transform it into a country run by mutants for mutants.

And I watch as he leaves the safety of the Brotherhood to extend an offer of protection, sanctuary, and housing to the X-Men.

Watch as Xavier refuses, with a sad little smile.

Watch as Magneto's jaw tightens and eyes go dark and how he touches Xavier – gently, reverently, lovingly, in a way that seems impossible from a man so hardened by death and pain.

Watch as they rest their foreheads against each other, breathing the same air, eyes closed, absolutely at peace in each other with Magneto's helmet cast aside and trusting Xavier not to control him and Xavier out of the chair and trusting Magneto to hold him, before Magneto promises that the mansion's safety will always be a top priority for the Brotherhood and Genosha.

I don't really hear the words.

But I know they are spoken, and as genuine as the _want_, binding and strong and forever burning, in Magneto's soft touches against Xavier's skin, as the _love_, pulling and undeniable and forever burning, in Xavier's eyes as he looks at Magneto.

Then Magneto pulls away, tucks Xavier back into his chair, and after a long moment spent watching Xavier with regret and love, leaves.

His guard is down as he flies back to Genosha, and I know, again without knowing, that it's because he's caught between wanting to kidnap Xavier and stow him on Genosha for his own protection and wishing that Xavier had taken him over, erased his memories, changed his mind.

And when he lands on the shore, confused by the lack of a greeting, Deadpool is on him before he can even say a single word.

The first blow knocks Magneto back so hard that three ribs crack even _before_ he hits the side of the building and leaves a human-sized dent in it. The second wrenches his jaw out of alignment and nearly takes his whole head off. The third nearly shatters his femur.

Magneto lurches to his feet, snarling in fury and fear, and now Deadpool's dodging bullets and chains and everything else Magneto can command.

"You'd dare attack a brother?" Magneto roars, as the symphony of metal grows under his hands.

And there it is, fear, fear, _fear_, so strong it makes Magneto's hands shake.

He wonders how long Deadpool has been tracking him. He wonders why he didn't notice. He curses himself for putting Charles in danger.

And, oh, that thought is strange. _Charles_ – all warm with sunshine and honey and sweet fire of regret and shame and want and _love_ – bound up in a nameless fear and undying devotion and loyalty that lasts beyond the grave.

"Magneto will die, yes?" I ask, uneasily, because seeing so much of a man beneath the helmet and finding he is all too real is . . . disturbing.

"Oh, yes. Soon."

Deadpool gets his chance when he hurls a torch at Magneto, who catches it – and in the moment of distraction, Deadpool is hurtling towards Magneto, unstoppable and undeniable, and then Magneto is off his feet, gasping, as unforgiving hands close around his throat, tightening, tightening, tightening –

"Erik!"

A cry echoes across the pavement, but it's too late –

Magneto sags limply in Deadpool's arms, eyes rolled back in his head, heart stopped for good.

Charles Xavier wheels onto the scene, eyes frozen on Magneto's body as Deadpool drops him and lifts an eyebrow at the newcomer, brushing away blood like it's nothing. He looks beyond horrified. He looks beyond mad. He looks . . . like a monster.

"What have you done?" he shrieks.

Deadpool doesn't answer. He can't. He's just a robot.

Xavier puts two fingers to his temple. _Erik, please, Erik, Erik, Erik, wake up, please wake up, Erik, _Erik_, Erik –_

But it's already far too late.

"_No!_"

The cry is wrenched from somewhere deep and primal in Xavier, somewhere cold and unforgiving, somewhere relentless and heartbroken. Magneto's death has broken something vital in Xavier, some kind of barrier or gate or control, something that I know instinctively was never meant to be broken because . . . well, it just wasn't, but it _has_ and Magneto's death has caused it and Xavier will never, ever be right again, because Magneto's death has shattered him beyond any kind of repair or reparation or . . . or . . .

I can't think of the word.

"Humanity," Adler says quietly. "That's the word you're thinking of. Humanity." She lifts her chin. "The Professor dies right now."

I flick my eyes back to the scene. "What? How?"

I didn't ask for that.

The entire scene _shakes_. The world goes cold, as cold as Xavier's eyes are now becoming, and blue fire erupts around his wheelchair, crawling up his legs to frame his face, and his eyes turn a bright, blazing blue, like the stars, and _he puts his hands to the armrests and stands_.

_Who sent you?_

The question blazes across the room, leaving my eyes filled with stars at its power. Xavier is far more powerful than he seemed.

"He isn't Xavier anymore, William Stryker."

"Then who the hell is this?" I demand, because of _course_ there can't only be one mutant threat, there _has_ to be a dozen crazy terrorists that I have to take care of. Jesus, why couldn't one be enough?

Deadpool gives an anguished cry and collapses, wailing, wailing, wailing so unnaturally it makes the hair at the back of my neck stand up. His skin _boils_ and then starts _vanishing_, cell by cell lifting away as Xavier dismantles him on an atomic level, suppressing his mutation so he can't heal completely but leaving enough of it intact to put Deadpool in unbearable agony.

_You will pay for this_, the not-Xavier hisses, fists clenched, eyes like stars, blue fire outlining his body. _You will all burn for this. I will never forgive you._

Adler smiles, soft and sad. "His name is Onslaught. He is a level five telepath and telekinetic whose power is outmatched by no one yet alive. The Professor kept him locked down because Onslaught is rather . . . reactionary," she says. "He has similar goals as the Professor, but is much more violent. As you can see."

And I do, _I do_.

Xavier turns and leaves Genosha. The city falls in ten minutes, and is dismantled to dust, every living being and inanimate object alike, seconds later. He then turns and _moves_ himself to levitate into the air, heading for America, and every single country he flies over is ripped to atoms and dispersed as he does so, such is the power of his fury. Mutant and human, old and young, no matter who they are, they die.

When he reaches Westchester, the mutants that try to stop him fall like puppets with their strings cut, lying on the ground with their eyes wide and unseeing, the trace of their last words on their lips.

When he gets to Langley, everyone is dead within one second.

Except me.

"Who – Who are you?" I watch myself bluster, backing away, terrified, emptying round after round is so easily dispersed.

Xavier cocks his head. _You weren't even brave enough to kill him yourself_, he murmurs, but the words ring in my ears and make the future me scream in agony as the words are branded, seared into his mind and soul. _You dared to send one of our brothers to betray us instead. You dared to _touch_ him. You dared to _kill_ Erik. For that, you will pay as no one else will._

"Go the hell away!"

Xavier shrugs. _As you wish._

And he does go away – because the first thing he deprives the future me of is sight. Then hearing. Then smell. The taste. Touch remains, as does the ability to scream.

The sun rises and falls seven times before the future me's heart finally, finally gives out and Xavier lets me die.

Xavier turns on his heel and rises into the sky like a god. _You have harmed me irreparably_, he thinks to the whole world – well, the bits that are still left. _So here is what you shall pay._

The whole world screams and claws and falls as he triggers mutations in every remaining human, forcing them to become mutant, to manifest, to become often what they feared and despised. But not a single person becomes a telepath. Or a metalkinetic. And for a moment, he makes them share _his_ mind, to see the mental map of _life_ spread out, to taste the shared joy and happiness and greed and anger that every living person experiences, to see that they are the same, are _one_, are equal.

Xavier makes his way back to Genosha, and there – there is the scene I have seen.

Xavier, keening wordlessly and endlessly over Magneto's body, as the world fades and crumbles to dust around them, lost forever in his grief and his rage and his pain.

And the world reasserts itself.

I sit bolt upright, gasping, and suddenly it's so hot that I am nearly falling out of my chair.

"What the _hell_?"

Adler shrugs. "You wanted Magneto dead? You saw what happened."

I take a swallow of water. And then another. And the another. And wish desperately for something far stronger, because that was _horrifying_.

"It will happen if Magneto dies?" I ask finally. "There's no way around it?"

Adler shakes her head. "In every version, no matter how or when Magneto dies, if he dies by your hand or even on purpose – Onslaught pops up, takes over, and pretty much destroys the whole world. I have never seen a single vision of anything different." She offers me a pitying smile. "And you thought that Magneto was your worst enemy, hm? Newsflash: he's not."

I swallow. So. Xavier is powerful. Devastatingly so.

"Then show me how to kill him."

Adler sighs. "You are going about this wrong way, William Stryker," she mutters.

"Just show me the damn vision."

"Fine."

This time, I'm prepared for a world gone mad, but I hope that's not too bad. Magneto can't wreak the level of destruction that Xavier can, as he's not a telepath.

Then the visions manifest, and I see that the world is somehow, just as bad.

If not worse.

And Magneto stands in the center of it, face wet with tears that never stop, clothes soaked with blood from wounds that never close, and Xavier's still body clutched close to his chest as he makes the world pay for Xavier's death.


	3. Chapter 2

A/N: My ff account's been screwing with me. I've been unable to post for two days in a row now. Idk what's going on. But here!

Warning for homophobia. It _is_ the 1960s.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Chapter Two:<em>**

_Curiosity killed the cat_

~ _William Stryker_ ~  
>And now Adler was beginning to get on my nerves.<p>

"Are you just playing with me, now?" I demanded irritably, as the scene reasserted itself in Westchester, with the now familiar looming Xavier mansion in the distance.

Adler looked sideways at me, somehow still managing to look me dead in the eye despite her blindness, which was now sadly becoming far less disconcerting. Although maybe that was just because I had just watched the formerly pacifistic Xavier turn into a damn _demon_ and rip the entire world to shreds. I hadn't even known that Xavier had been that close to Magneto anyways.

"I do not play, William Stryker," she said lowly. "You asked for Magneto's dead. I showed you how."

"You also just showed me that the world will end, anyways, if Xavier dies." I eyed her. "Out of curiosity, _how_? Not everything is made of metal. Magneto can only do so much if he wishes to kill us for Xavier."

Privately, I wondered, _Why?_

I had never thought Xavier and Magneto close at all. Well, yes, Xavier had jumped off a boat to save Magneto, reportedly, but still . . .

"You're going to ask me why Xavier and Magneto are so close."

I jumped.

Adler frowned at me. "I would assume that it was very clear from the way they act."

Then it sank in – "They're _queers_?"

God, if being mutants wasn't bad enough and breaking the laws of nature. Now Xavier and Magneto broke _actual_ laws too! And we had . . . I felt faint. We had entrusted them with the training of _children_. We had financed and supported _queers_. Considering the laws, they both should have been _jailed_, and we had created a whole new division for them.

Adler snorted, making me jump again. "Oh, for God's sake, William Stryker. Have your little temper tantrum later. Do you want to see how to kill Xavier or not?"

Grumbling, I followed her into the house.

"_How_ is this helpful?" I shouted.

She had led me carefully through the mansion, pointing out weak spots and hiding places rather easily and seemingly without a care in the world. And then she had headed for the master bedroom, which I had assumed would hold Xavier, so I hadn't said anything. But then, when she had opened the doors and we had slipped into the room, it was only then that I had realized _why_ the corridors seemed so empty.

Magneto was here.

And everyone was, apparently, skirting his path.

With good reason, I thought, because Magneto was currently lying comfortably in the bed next to Xavier, eyes closed and evidently relaxed, save for the arms pulled snugly around Xavier's body tugging him close. The two were curled into each other as much as physically possible, legs tangled, arms clasped around each other, Xavier's head buried into the crook of Magneto's neck, and the messy and rumpled state of their discarded clothes and sheets spoke volumes to the debauchery they had participated in the night before.

Adler eyed me with amusement playing on her lips. "Is love wrong?"

I gestured wordlessly, trying to find words to communicate just how _wrong_ this was. "They're both _men_!"

"And I'm fairly certain that Magneto loves Xavier far more than your son will love his son," Adler said faintly, the amusement draining from her to replaced by cold weariness that made her seem much, much older. "Anyways. The Professor is the most powerful telepath in the entire world, William Stryker. His powers have only expanded as the years have passed. Trust . . . comes far less easily to someone so powerful. It is very, very rare for them to trust enough to let their guard down enough that you could actually launch a successful attack on the Professor." She looked down. "This is one of those times."

I snorted. "Post-coital bliss? _That's_ what I'm looking for?"

"No," she murmured quietly. "You're looking for a time when the Professor is with someone he loves so completely that that person occupies his entire world, and he isn't paying attention to anything or anyone else. Your blatant homophobia notwithstanding, William Stryker, if you wish to kill the Professor, you will have to do so whilst he is in the company of Magneto. At no other time will his guard be sufficiently relaxed to allow for an attack."

"You're lying."

Adler stared flatly at me. "Try me."

A rumble rolled through the house, and Magneto stirred at Xavier's side, blinking his eyes open briefly. "Charles?"

The telepath mumbled something and merely tucked himself closer in response, causing the metalkinetic to laugh. He leaned down to kiss the telepath's forehead, eyes growing somber.

"I have to leave."

The telepath cracked an eye open. "I know."

Magneto stroked a hand down Xavier's spine, fondness and protectiveness mixing in his expression in a way that made me rather uncomfortable. There was _devotion_ in his eyes, something unshakeable and forever binding, and it made me consider Adler's question: "Is love wrong?" Because if I was going on past experiences of love, Magneto's current expression certainly fit among them except . . . well, it was aimed at another man.

"Be safe."

For some reason, it made Xavier smile. "You would never hurt me."

"I meant the humans, Charles."

"Moira didn't hurt me either." Xavier yawned. "And I doubt anything would try to hurt the mansion, Erik, no one knows where we are."

"So you think."

"I was very thorough, Erik. You, even more so."

Magneto sighed and slid from the bed, dressing so rapidly that I barely had time to look away before he was fully dressed, swinging a heavy cloak over his shoulders and lifting the magenta helmet from the dresser. Then he leaned over the bed again, capturing the telepath's lips in another kiss. "Azazel found some disturbing reports from the CIA," he said. "I don't know when I'll be able to visit again."

"You're always welcome here, Erik, you know that."

Something flashed in Magneto's eyes.

"No, don't even go there, Erik. It was not your fault. And even if you keep persisting in the delusion that it was, I've already forgiven you. It's been fifteen years, Erik, that water flowed under the bridge ages ago." Xavier pushed playfully at Magneto's chest; there was hardly enough strength for it to actually make someone move in any direction. "Now go and save the world. And don't tell me how, please, I'd rather not become an accomplice in . . . whatever you plan on doing."

I turned to Adler. "Didn't Magneto paralyze him?" I asked.

Adler nodded. "The Professor has an exemplary talent for forgiveness," she said simply. "Especially for someone he loves as much as he loves Magneto. It does . . . hurt him, when Magneto insists on killing humans. But it's been enough time – they've come to an agreement, of sorts, and they do visit each other from time to time. They just . . . agreed to disagree."

Magneto straightened and carefully assisted the telepath in dressing before lifting him into his wheelchair, his movements practiced and efficient. There was another, last kiss, and then he strode to the window, threw it open, and stepped outside, floating effortlessly away, with nary a look back or a good-bye.

Xavier sunk back into his wheelchair, curling into himself as though missing the warmth of a body beside him. But I could see what Adler meant. His posture was relaxed and unguarded, and if I had to bet, I was willing to say that he wasn't reaching out with his telepathy, content to rest in the memories of Magneto. He was very, very vulnerable now that Magneto had left him.

"Why fifteen years?" I said abruptly.

Adler hummed. "You need a robot to kill a telepath. Any living being, a telepath would easily destroy, no matter how programmed. You saw how quickly Deadpool fell to Onslaught, after all. But you knew that Magneto would keep a close eye on the Professor, so you had to limit the number of magnetic components. So it takes a while to do all of that. But now . . . five, four, three, two, one."

As the word "one" passed her lips, the window Magneto had left from burst open, sending glass flying all over the room.

The telepath started so badly that he fell out of his chair.

A gleaming golem of a robot stood there, so tall it nearly touched the ceiling, with an emotionless mask of a face. It was utterly terrifying. Even more so when it started talking. "Target identified," it spat robotically. "Charles F. Xavier. Professor of genetics. Thirty three years old. Telepath. Paralyzed. Owner of the Westchester Xavier estate. Not a threat to this unit." It paused, and I knew it was relaying the information back to . . . somewhere.

"It's talking to you," Adler informed me.

"By God, what _are_ you?" Xavier said finally, trying to lever himself back into the chair. He wasn't scared.

Not yet.

"That's because he's calling for back-up," Adler said. "Namely, Magneto. Which would be wonderful if Magneto hadn't put on started flying two seconds ago." A pause. "He won't be able to get back fast enough."

"Order: Destroy target. Order confirmed."

Xavier's eyes widened, and this time he managed to get himself back into his chair, rolling away, but –

The robot shot Xavier with something, and the telepath gasped, clawing at the dart uselessly. I could see whatever serum was in the dart taking effect as his movements grew jerky and weak, his muscles moving erratically, his eyes rolling back and his teeth clenching in pain.

The doors burst open, revealing a blue-furred creature, a blonde boy, and a redhead.

Xavier slumped so much that he fell from his chair.

"Professor!"

The robot straightened. "Order completed. Target destroyed."

The window frames bent, and the entire room shook. Magneto landed seconds later, hands clenched, eyes wide with fury as he took in the scene. "Charles!" Around him, the walls ripped apart as pipes flew to form a glimmering shield.

The robot swiveled. "Target: Magneto. Also known as Erik Lehnsherr and Max Eisenhardt. Leader of the Brotherhood of Mutants. Thirty seven years old. Metalkinetic. Orders – "

The robot screeched and crumpled from the force of Magneto's ire as he beheld Xavier's lifeless body.

The scene blurred, and suddenly we were standing outside, and I swayed.

"What – "

"We can't stay there. That would create some visual problems," Adler explained calmly, tilting her head back as if she could actually see upward.

"Why?"

In answer, the entire house groaned, long and ominous, and then suddenly seemed to implode, falling to pieces in every which direction. Windows shattered, walls collapsed, rooms were ripped apart. The entire _mansion_ came falling to the ground with a rumble, sending dust and debris everywhere, until nothing was left.

"Magneto?"

Adler nodded. "You would be surprised how much of this place is made out of something metallic."

Magneto flew down then to land in front of us, clutching Xavier's still body to his chest as he knelt and pressed shaking fingers to try and find his pulse. "Charles, come on, damn it!" he was saying. "Charles Xavier, don't you dare, _don't you dare die on me_, Charles, come on!"

There was a poof, and suddenly Emma Frost and a red-skinned demon were there.

She took one look and frowned.

"He's dead, Magneto. I'm getting nothing."

Magneto's head bowed in grief, and tears started running down his cheeks. His entire body trembled with suppressed rage. "The humans killed him." His voice was so flat that he might have been a robot himself. "They _killed_ him. He, who might have thrown himself in my path to stop me – they dared to _kill_ him."

Frost looked at him. "What are you going to do?" she asked quietly.

Magneto looked up, and his eyes were as savage as Onslaught's had been, devoid of emotion and replaced by an aching emptiness and haunting despair that consumed him body and soul.

"I am going to destroy them."

Adler touched my arm again. The scene blurred, and suddenly we were hovering in mid-air.

"What now?"

Adler stared impassively at what _looked_ like the North Pole. Or, at least, I knew it was, even though there was no way I could have. "Yes, it is the North Pole. Magneto is coming here. Did you know, the entire world is covered in magnetic fields, William Stryker? And did you know that Magneto first accessed his powers through the rage brought on by separation from loved ones?"

A chill crept through me. "But Xavier – "

"Is the one person that Magneto has loved more than anyone else. And his death is the one thing that could inspire the rage to do what he feels must be done."

Sure enough, Magneto appeared seconds later, clothes torn and bloodied, cheeks still wet with tears, and raised his hands.

And the world was destroyed.

"What the _hell_ did he do?"

"He reversed the polarities of the magnetic fields," Adler said calmly. "It was a theoretical concept Xavier dreamed up, once. Magneto has the rage now to actually fulfill it without Xavier's help."

She turned to me. "Not so easy, is it, even when you've killed the most powerful telepath?"

The scene blurred, and I was sitting in the cell again.

"Kill them all," I blurted.

Adler looked askance at me. "Are you serious?"

"Show me how to kill them both, damn it. It's apparently the only way to keep them away from mass destruction." I felt like rising from my seat and grabbing her throat. "I _will_ find a way, Adler. Tell me what it will cost me to kill Xavier and Magneto, and I'll do it, I swear it. They _have_ to die."

Adler sighed. "You're not going to like that either, you know," she said, disgruntled. "But fine. Let's see how you fare when the X-Men and the Brotherhood band together after you kill off their leaders."


	4. Chapter 3

**_Chapter Three:_**

**Even a timid mouse will fight like a lion when cornered**

~ _William Stryker_ ~  
>"It will take you twenty years," Adler says without preamble. "To amass something that can kill two of the most powerful mutants ever been born is not an easy task. Of course, keep in mind that by then, the X-Men will have been established, and the Brotherhood will be well on its way to a full-fledged organization."<p>

"Why do I care?"

She looked sideways at me. "Do you really think they'll just vanish?"

"Yes. If you cut off the head, the body falls."

"Perhaps."

The weaponry, apparently, was more of those strange robots. Sentinels, Adler told me they were called. They would be armed with weaponry the likes of which sounded like they came from fairytales. They would be built with special materials that were not susceptible to magnetism, and their human controllers would be across the country, well out of Xavier's telepathic range. They would be as tall as a house, and built strong enough to withstand a house, if it came to that. And they would be designed to kill.

"Will they work?"

"If they didn't, you would be viewing a different vision of how to kill them."

This time, Xavier and Magneto were together. Not in the one-night-stand type of together or a chess game together, but apparently an actual putting-aside-of-differences-and-taking-a-vacation together. They went to Cuba, surprisingly, and Magneto had somehow managed to fashion a safe house there on the same beach where once they had parted with blood and tears shed.

"They're crazy."

"Actually, that would just be the Professor. Magneto thinks he's crazy too." Adler's tone softened. "But then again, love makes fools of us all, sometimes."

I looked sideways at her. Her strange sympathy for them. . . "Are you talking from experience?"

Adler smiled and shrugged. "I see many loves. Every future is possible."

"And you're arrogant enough to think you know all?"

A flicker of unease flashed across her face, and she crossed her arms. "My mutation is just as limited as everyone else's. I don't know everything. I wish I did. But I don't. There are thousands of visions in my head, William Stryker, but only a handful will come true. Do I have any influence? Not really. But I wish I did. Just like you do."

I turned my attention back to Xavier and Magneto, slightly repulsed and slight curious. Here we were again with that strange mix of childlike idealism and adult words. It was so _odd_.

Of course, that wasn't to say that the scenes in front of me weren't any odder.

They were so familiar with each other, and yet so hesitant all the same. Very close. Oddly close. And yet they had such opposing views as to drive them miles apart, to send their own recruits against each other in battle, to fight and fight and fight. It sounded more like a star-crossed love than anything else.

"It's only star-crossed because you insist on driving them apart."

"Oh, now it's _my_ fault?"

"Yes," Adler said.

"How do you see that?"

Adler eyed me and seemed to laugh. "William Stryker. Magneto is basing his need to create a revolution because of people like you, humans like you, who keep trying to cage him. How is it _not_ your fault?"

"You're just a _child_. You can't know these things."

She pointed in the distance, where Magneto lounged gracefully at Xavier's side, the two hovering over a chessboard, bright laughter ringing in the air to frame their joy-filled faces as they argued fiercely in between moving chess pieces. "Maybe I am a child. But tell me – do _they_ look like terrorists?"

The bad part: the answer was no.

"How can you even see them?" I asked irritably instead.

"I can't. I have no idea what they look like," she answered wistfully. "I wish I did."

I turned to her, feeling uneasily sympathetic despite it all. "How long have you been blind, actually?" I wanted to say that I asked to fish out more information. Instead, I found myself just genuinely wanting to understand her.

Adler shrugged. "I don't remember a time I could see," she confessed.

"Do you know what colors look like?"

"No."

And _now_ she definitely looked like a child, a little lost in an adult's world, backed into a corner only to realize that the room was so much bigger than she thought and quite beyond her. Of course, appearances could be deceiving. But somehow I was starting to think that her confident act was just that: an act. Designed to fool me and anyone else, but she definitely couldn't fool herself. She was just as desperate to change my mind as I was to kill off Magneto and Xavier.

One of the robots walked up – not as well-armed, but dressed and crafted to look and mimic humans to the point where it took me several minutes to realize it was a robot.

Magneto shifted onto his knees, carefully maneuvering himself in between the robot and Xavier, the bright smile vanishing to be replaced by an impassive expression so cold it looked like it was carved out of stone.

"What?"

Xavier laid a hand on Magneto's arm chidingly, tilting his head at the robot –

Then his eyes widened, and Magneto stiffened.

A knife was in Magneto's hand seconds later, warping to warp around the robot's throat and send him hurtling backwards, even as Magneto leaped to his feet and looked around for other sources of metal to use and Xavier raised his fingers towards his temple, presumably asking for aid –

"How did that help?"

Adler shrugged. "It was inevitable that the first wave would fail. You can only overwhelm people like Magneto with numbers."

And numbers came.

Wave after wave of robots came pouring down to the sand, firing the second they fixed target locks on Xavier and Magneto, and although the two mutants put up a valiant defense, it really _was_ beyond them. Numbers could bring down even the most powerful of mutants, and Xavier had no one to work his telepathy on while Magneto could only draw upon so much metal, and neither would abandon the other to get help or simply _survive_, and –

They were doomed.

A sudden thought occurred to me. "Last time you showed Xavier taking over the world. Why not now?"

Adler frowned slightly, poking at mid-air as though it would give her an answer. "Onslaught is the Professor's unconscious power," she said finally. "By now, he would have had enough time to lock him away. I think. I'm not quite sure how level 5 manifestations work."

She looked at me. "This is a one chance thing, William Stryker. If you don't try it exactly _now_, when both Magneto and Xavier have their guard down, it won't work."

On the beach, the firing ceased suddenly.

The beach was smoking under all the firing that had gone down, and blood stained the chessboard and blanket Magneto and Xavier had been using. Both were lying still in the sand, eyes wide and unseeing, fingers clutching uselessly at the sand. They were dead, and their corpses were barely recognizable.

For the first time, I felt slightly sick to my stomach.

I couldn't quite explain _why_, but I felt it all the same. Xavier and Magneto had looked so carefree, so _happy_ – and then it had all been ripped away.

There was a _poof_, and suddenly the beach was crowded with members of the Brotherhood. There was Emma Frost, cool and grim; the red-demon teleporter, looking faintly shocked; the tornado-maker, startled and concerned; Angel Salvadore, drawing backwards in shock; and Mystique, Xavier's adopted sister, falling to her knees, tears shimmering in golden eyes, crying out in shock and disbelief, reaching wildly for the bullet-riddled bodies of her brother and her leader.

"So – that's it?" I asked.

Adler smiled tightly. "I wish it was. This scenario . . . it gives me a few more years of life, perhaps a decade or so. But it's just as bad, in the end."

"Why? Both of the leaders are dead. Cut off the head, and the body dies."

She gave me a sidelong look. "You expect them to cower before you simply because you have slaughtered their leaders?"

"It's what they've always done."

"Even a mouse will fight back, when the time is right," Adler said, very softly. "And _homo sapien superior_ will always be stronger than a mere mouse."

The Brotherhood linked hands, and there was the oddest sensation –

And we were back in Westchester.

Standing on the lawn were other faces I'd become familiar with in the files of the X-Men. Ororo Munroe, Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Hank McCoy, Alex Summers, Sean Cassidy, Armando Muñoz, and even a few children, scattered around, ignoring the teachers too shocked at the Brotherhood to reprimand them.

It was Mystique who stepped forward to breach the divide.

What happened next was, perhaps, the worst thing of all – Alex Summers, the default leader of the X-Men in Xavier's absence, _stepped forward and shook hands with Mystique_.

My stomach sunk. "They unite."

"They always will."

The Brotherhood moved into Westchester, with Mystique serving as the bridge between the former X-Men and the former Brotherhood, with Emma Frost on one side and Alex Summers on the other, and the three were a terrifying triad now that they were going to avenge their leaders and prove the whole world that mutants were not to be trifled with. I saw labs fall, cities crumble, an entire _country_ brought to its knees under the formidable force of the two greatest mutant organizations standing together in honor of their fallen leaders.

United, they were just as terrifying as Xavier or Magneto alone.

The visions resolved, abruptly, to linger on the headstone in the back garden: two delicate etches, powerful in their simplicity – Magneto and the Professor, Erik Lehnsherr and Charles Xavier.

United even in death.

Then I was back in the CIA compound, breathing heavily, and Adler sat across from me and discreetly wiped at her own eyes.

I swallowed. Once. Twice. "Is that all?" I said, trying to be harsh.

Adler shrugged. "I can't really give you much more. You have all the information you might need, if you wish to kill the Professor or Magneto or both. And you know how to do so, and what will happen as a result."

"You're giving me no choice!" I protested. "Even if they both die, Mystique takes their place – "

Adler's eyes hardened, suddenly, her shoulders stiffening as her spine straightened, and despite her blindness and short stature she suddenly seemed to loom over me. "That is a cycle that cannot continue," she said, after a moment. "You can't kill every leader that arises in the Brotherhood or X-Men – they all can lead, eventually, when times get desperate."

"You mean the end of the world."

There was silence for a long moment.

Then Adler stood, very slowly, as if every movement pained her. "I've given you what you want, William Stryker," she murmured wearily. "Now, the choice is yours to make."

"Yes, what end of the world," I said bitterly, scrubbing at my eyes.

"Would it really be that bad to live with us?"

I glared at her. "You're all sins against God and humanity, all of you. I'd rather burn in the pits of hell for killing you than have to watch you run this country down. And I _will_ destroy you, somehow, someday."

Adler fell silent.

"Some say the world will end in fire, some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice, I think I know enough of hate to know that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice."

Adler's voice was rhythmic and gentle, as if she was reading to a child. Her eyes were closed, and tears still glimmered on her cheeks. She looked like a child.

Her eyes opened, again. "And there is the difference between us, William Stryker. Magneto was forged in fire, you know, in the camps, and the Professor in the ice. They are going to be the leaders who shape our future, whether or not you kill them, because they _are_ the end of the world. The world as you know it. I have accepted it. Now it is up to you – whether you will continue in trying to stop the flow of water, or will learn to flow with the water, and make a difference your own way." She smiled crookedly. "As for me, I quite think that the Professor has enough power to destroy this world twice over as payment for your hate, don't you?"

Then she slipped around me and simply . . . left.

No one tried to stop her.

Possibly because she somehow knew exactly where to go, despite being blind, and probably had a few words with the guards who got in her way.

And I was left to forge a new future.

Irene Adler was overly optimistic, I thought, to leave me behind and not attempt to influence me any further. Then again, maybe not – even now, my mind was being to put far away the details she had imparted of how to kill off either Xavier or Magneto. I shuddered every time I realized how much destruction would be inflicted if either or both were killed. Instead, my mind kept returning to that scene, on the beach, the two worst enemies and greatest friends, somehow managing to compromise enough to love so deeply that the bond never faded.

I wondered, vaguely, what it might be like to feel a love like that.

And so I rose to make a new future.


	5. Epilogue

A/N: I know it's a bit of an age stretch from 1962 to 2006. But bear with me here, because I couldn't use the younger William Stryker 'cause he's like 14 in X-Men First Class.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Epilogue<em>**

**2006, Westchester Institute for Gifted Youngsters**

~ _William Stryker_ ~  
>The Professor greeted me at the gates, face flushed and eyes bright, and for someone who was heading near seventy he looked fairly well. In the background I could hear the shouts of children, mainly consisting of complaining about cheating with powers, and I smirked to myself as my grandson simply shrugged and jogged over to me, letting his illusionary double monitor the chaos.<p>

"Welcome back, General Stryker," the Professor said. "I apologize, I wasn't expecting you so early – "

I waved it off. I hadn't spent much time with the Professor, preferring to deal with Magneto during the negotiations, for two reasons. One, I had never really wanted the Professor to pull out my encounter with Irene Adler so many years ago, and two, because as a military man I could understand Magneto. The Professor . . . was a bit more easily underestimated, and I intended to never underestimate him. It was much harder to underestimate or grow complacent around Magneto.

"Where's my daughter?" I asked.

I had adopted a mutant child, a lovely little girl with a rather mundane power – making sparks at her fingertips – and she and my son had grown close, so much so that when Jason had first manifested it had been to Jubilee that my son had gone for advice, which had led him to have Jason studying at the Westchester Institute.

The Professor leaned on a bench. During the first years of the Weapon X program, where the CIA and the Westchester Institute had worked to ensure the freedom of mutants across the globe, there had been plenty of serums developed, including one that had helped spur the healing of the Professor's formerly severed spinal cord. It had, at the very least, gone a long way towards softening Magneto's hatred.

It had not, however, lightened his protectiveness. Somehow he seemed to think that we were just waiting for the day to take the serum back from the Professor and cripple him again.

Magneto had been very, very hard to win over. It had taken years of civil and mutant rights laws going through and lots of persuasion from the Professor before he had started relaxing enough to make Westchester his base. He still refused to let us know what mission the Brotherhood did behind our backs, though.

"I'm afraid she's with Erik," the Professor said apologetically. "They're setting up Warlock on Genosha now, and she wanted to go see it."

Of course.

Genosha was a mutant sanctuary, for those who didn't want or weren't yet ready to mingle in the human world. It had formerly been entirely one giant experiment on mutants, but with the CIA's help, the Brotherhood and the X-Men had freed it, and were now working to make the country part of the United Nations.

"I suppose you can wait for – Oh." The Professor's eyes cleared, and he turned, a smile already spreading across his face.

After that, he didn't need to speak for me to know what was going on.

The Professor had been the first telepath to acknowledge his mutation publicly – well, somewhat. Magneto's mutation had been known for years, he just hadn't presented it all neat and scientifically like the Professor had. Of course, shortly afterward, the studies had focused on the mindlinks that telepaths often forged between those in their family, with the Professor having submitted to testing to prove that he was not only the most powerful telepath in the world but also had the strongest mindlink – in his case, to Erik Lehnsherr.

Five seconds later, Magneto's figure appeared in the doorway, and then, swift and silent as ever, he was by the Professor's side, greeting him with a quick kiss to the temple and an arm sliding around his waist.

"General Stryker," Magneto said coolly.

I knew that the two weren't flamboyant about their relationship – even the two gold rings that glinted on their hands were fairly small and inconspicuous – unless, of course, one or the other happened to be threatened. Magneto had made it fairly clear early on that any threats against the Institute or the Professor would be interpreted as a threat against him, and after a few demonstrations, people had learned to stay far away from the Professor.

In the beginning, many had seen the Professor as too soft to retaliate in equal response. Magneto had been taken only once.

People had been too terrified of what the Professor had done that time to ever try doing it again.

I had seen it coming, of course, thanks to Adler, but thankfully Onslaught's rage had not been aimed at me this time, and instead at the foolish Friends of Humanity who'd dared to take Magneto when he had travelled to Europe on the Brotherhood's first offensive mission in response to an anti-mutant riot. It had still been utterly terrifying, though.

"Magneto," I replied. No one called the metalkinetic "Erik" anymore, except for his family – in fact, most mutants who worked with the Institute were more widely known by their chosen mutant names than by their given names.

The Professor swatted gently at Magneto's hand, probably in rebuke for some thought; Magneto merely smiled like a predator stalking his prey, although the edges were softened as he gazed down at the telepath. The two had been together so long that I had only ever actually heard them talking out loud when conversing with each one or two times.

"We do make an attempt," the Professor protested. "At least once a day."

Magneto raised an eyebrow. "We make an _attempt_," he emphasized, drawing the telepath closer in a move that once might have been protective and now was merely a sign of affection.

Of course, it still might be protective. Magneto was rumored to only trust the Professor's safety when he was absent with a handful of his highest lieutenants in the Brotherhood and the X-Men, and never with a human – especially not someone like me, a human involved with the intelligence agencies.

"Erik trusts you," the Professor said, and then made a face. "I'm sorry, you are thinking very loudly, my apologies."

Magneto grumbled something, shifting his stance.

"Erik."

"Charles," he returned easily. There was a pause and then he said, suddenly, "Your daughter is with Destiny, Stryker."

I blinked, and then sighed. Sometimes, the Professor and Magneto were more like two faces of the same person or perhaps two sides of the same coin that it was honestly scary. It had probably only gotten worse when the mindlink between them had triggered secondary mutations, resulting in the Professor becoming mildly telekinetic and Magneto mildly telepathic.

Which was why I refused to touch Magneto's skin.

"Who is Destiny?" I asked curiously. It seemed like every time I turned around there was a new member of the X-Men or the Brotherhood.

Magneto raised an eyebrow. "Her slave name was Irene Adler," he said, tone distasteful.

I froze.

The Professor's eyes flicked to mine, and he frowned. He pulled away from Magneto's side, seeming startled by the strength of my reaction. "It's all right," he soothed. "She can't really change your future, she can only see it."

"_Charles_."

"Erik, really, one can _guess_ your power from your name," the Professor said.

Magneto snorted. "No need for the whole world to know."

I cleared my throat. "I would actually agree with that, Onslaught," I said, thinking back to how grossly I'd underestimated Adler's power when she had told me, outright, that her name was Destiny – and Magneto too, actually, after he'd messed with our magnetic poles.

Both Magneto and the Professor froze.

In the next instant, Magneto was suddenly standing in front of the Professor, and a bench had ripped itself free with a screech to hover around him.

"How do you know that?" Magneto demanded, low and furious.

I blinked, thinking back over my words. I hadn't said anything terribly out of line, although it had been hard, the first few months as I'd pushed for the passing of a mutant rights bill and the acknowledgement of mutants as people that the CIA would still protect – but now the future was outpacing Adler's visions, so I hadn't thought there was really a need to really guard my words.

The Professor laid a hand on Magneto's hand. "Erik."

"How can he possibly know it?" Magneto hissed, refusing to move aside and definitely keeping his eyes on me. "No one knows about that name except Mystique, Phoenix, and me. No one. And definitely _not_ a _human_."

I sighed as I realized my mistake.

They were right – they had never formally acknowledged the Professor's level five manifestation. Jean Grey was known formally as Marvel Girl, but she too had a level five manifestation, Phoenix, that she had made well known when she had helped free Genosha. However, the Professor had never acknowledged Onslaught.

I gestured at my temple. "It's all right, Professor. You can read my mind." It would make no difference now, I reasoned.

Magneto's eyes narrowed dangerously, but the Professor merely took his hand and stared at me.

For a moment, I felt nothing.

Then, with a shudder like a car engine coming to life, I felt the memories springing up, flowing to the forefront after decades of being pushed to the back – Adler's arrival, our confrontation, the visions, my choice to choose between fire and ice.

Magneto seemed shaken, when it was over, and I knew that he had shared the visions with the Professor.

"You wanted to kill _Charles_?" he snarled, taking a step forward as the twisted remains of the bench lurched forward. "How _dare_ you – "

The Professor's eyes flashed a brilliant blue – the sign of Onslaught, I knew – before he restrained Magneto. "It's all right, Erik. Remember what he has done for us. And I'm still alive," he finished quietly. "He made the right choice – and – and I thank you for it, General Stryker, I know it wasn't easy."

I put my hands in my pockets. "I wanted a world that was safe for my son," I said simply. "You can agree with my reasoning or not, but my son is human, Magneto, and you would have killed him as you killed me. I was ready to do whatever was necessary to spare him that." I looked away. "But Adler – Destiny – she showed me that we could have peace without that. And . . . I think, I think it was worth it."

_Thank you_, the Professor said in my head, his eyes shining with unshed tears.

I looked into the distance, where my daughter was chatting eagerly with my grandson, where children were playing and happily using their mutations, where the Institute instead of being the exception to the rule was the microcosm of the whole world where mutants were valued and accepted for who and what they were. This was not the peace I might have aimed for. But it was a peace far stronger than any I might have forged through war against Magneto and the Professor.

"No, Professor, Magneto," I murmured. "I think I should be thanking you."


End file.
